Apple and Samsung agree to drop cross-appeal of ITC embargo ruling

In a pair of filings with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit earlier this week, both Apple and Samsung dropped their respective appeals of an ITC order to block sales of certain Samsung products, agreeing further pursuit on the issue would be unfruitful.

News of the agreement first came from a Samsung motion on Thursday to voluntarily dismiss its appeal of the ITC ruling from August 2013 that found the company's products in infringement of two Apple patents.

As noted by FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller, who discovered the filings, Samsung said it had conferred with both the ITC and Apple, and neither had any qualms to the proposed dismissal. A day later, Apple filed its own motion corroborating Samsung's statements.

Apple said that Samsung's motion to drop its appeal means the Commission's exclusion and cease-and-desist orders are still in effect, but the Korean company's workarounds of the two patents in question have already nullified any commercial gain from the ruling.

Samsung's CAFC appeal sought to reverse the ITC import ban, while Apple's appeal looked to reverse decisions that allowed Samsung to create workarounds to its patented technology and possibly broaden the scope of the embargo.

In June 2013, Samsung won an ITC ban against older iPhones and iPads, though the decision was vetoed by President Barack Obama two months later. With the dismissal of appeals to Apple's win, it appears neither company will gain any meaningful commercial leverage as a result of their respective ITC advances.

What exactly is Samsung copying right now? And is Apple copying because things like actionable notifications, third party keyboards and inter-app communications all existed on other platforms before they did on iOS?

What exactly is Samsung copying right now? And is Apple copying because things like actionable notifications, third party keyboards and inter-app communications all existed on other platforms before they did on iOS?

Samsung is copying Apple's IP as per the court's ruling(s) and they are required to pay. As far as Apple copying, I haven't heard of any injunctions or claims against them from anyone except Samsung's counter claims. So what's your point?

What exactly is Samsung copying right now? And is Apple copying because things like actionable notifications, third party keyboards and inter-app communications all existed on other platforms before they did on iOS?

Sammy's entire smartphone/tablet business is a copy of Apples every move. it seems ironic that people will bash Apple for using a third party idea that was used on an iPHONEY in the first place.

"Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology

He went on to say:"When I started out with my first company, Zip2, I thought patents were a good thing and worked hard to obtain them. And maybe they were good long ago, but too often these days they serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors. After Zip2, when I realized that receiving a patent really just meant that you bought a lottery ticket to a lawsuit, I avoided them whenever possible.

At Tesla, however, we felt compelled to create patents out of concern that the big car companies would copy our technology and then use their massive manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm Tesla. We couldn’t have been more wrong. The unfortunate reality is the opposite: electric car programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn’t burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales.

At best, the large automakers are producing electric cars with limited range in limited volume. Some produce no zero emission cars at all.

Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis. By the same token, it means the market is enormous. Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.

We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.

Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard."

Tesla is a lightweight if there ever was one. Compared to the big auto manufacturers (and the component suppliers like Bosch or Delphi), Tesla's patent portfolio is miniscule. They are also in financial difficulty and are starting to make desperate moves to stay relevant.

Someone should ask Musk to make available all the secret IP from SpaceX. Oh wait, he doesn't patent most of it. There's a very good reason for that too. Patents have two sides, but people only talk about the patent protection/royalty side. The other side of getting a patent is that once granted it becomes PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE. That means your competitors get a highly detailed description of your invention. One of the conditions for getting a patent is that a person with reasonable skill in the field could take a patent description and produce the machine/device the patent describes. This prevents patent descriptions/claims from being so obscure that nobody could understand what they mean.

So there's no way Musk would ever consider patenting all their proprietary technology at SpaceX. Doing so would let your competitors know how all your devices work, and give them detailed instructions on how to build their own. And give them an ability to see exactly who's further along technology wise.

Musk is running his mouth to make it sound like he's being generous when the bottom line is he lacks the ability to change the automotive industry, and without any help from others he'll be irrelevant soon. There aren't enough wealthy "save the planet" types out there to support a company like his.

Certainly not claiming that any "copying" took place but it's silly to start using the lack of a patent as proof it didn't happen.

Never said that, so for the millionth time stop putting words in my mouth to use in your twisted logic. You knew exactly what I meant, but are being intentionally obtuse (like usual). I'll put it so a 5 year old can understand:

Apple sues Samsung for copying IP and wins in court. Twice now. Then the loser trolls come out of the woodwork and say Apple is a hypocrite for suing Samsung when Apple has used ideas they didn't come up with (like notifications). The difference is Apple never sued Samsung (or anyone) over some commonly used feature that's been around forever in countless versions - they sued Samsung over features they own patents on. The real hypocrites are the ones who bash Apple for using some feature that's in common use (and not patent protected) and equating it to what the thief Samsung did (stealing actual patent protected IP). They are not the same at all. Not sure why you have such a hard time understanding this.

Never said that, so for the millionth time stop putting words in my mouth to use in your twisted logic. You knew exactly what I meant

Apple sues Samsung for copying IP and wins in court. Twice now. Then the loser trolls come out of the woodwork and say Apple is a hypocrite for suing Samsung when Apple has used ideas they didn't come up with (like notifications). The difference is Apple never sued Samsung (or anyone) over some commonly used feature that's been around forever in countless versions - they sued Samsung over features they own patents on. The real hypocrites are the ones who bash Apple for using some feature that's in common use (and not patent protected) and equating it to what the thief Samsung did (stealing actual patent protected IP). They are not the same at all. Not sure why you have such a hard time understanding this.

No one mentioned suing Apple, nor suing anyone else for that matter. Except for you. . Rogifan made a comment on Apple and possible copying of features from another companies OS. You quickly said "Please, where are the patents for those things" to imply patents are required as a condition for copying.

Never said that, so for the millionth time stop putting words in my mouth to use in your twisted logic. You knew exactly what I meant, but are being intentionally obtuse (like usual). I'll put it so a 5 year old can understand:

Apple sues Samsung for copying IP and wins in court. Twice now. Then the loser trolls come out of the woodwork and say Apple is a hypocrite for suing Samsung when Apple has used ideas they didn't come up with (like notifications). The difference is Apple never sued Samsung (or anyone) over some commonly used feature that's been around forever in countless versions - they sued Samsung over features they own patents on. The real hypocrites are the ones who bash Apple for using some feature that's in common use (and not patent protected) and equating it to what the thief Samsung did (stealing actual patent protected IP). They are not the same at all. Not sure why you have such a hard time understanding this.

Define common use? How many users does their have to be to qualify common use? Btw where did anyone mention theft? If someone says "Apple copied this or that" it doesn't mean that they think Apple stole anything. Copying doesn’t equate theft.

I think the whole idea of trying to protect iOS and the devices via patents was Steve's baby. He's the one who prominently featured the patented-ness of the interface and physical features in the slides that introduced the iPhone to the world. That's a feature that should have mainly impressed investors, not users. Why should a devoted iPhone owner care whether Android phones have similar features, and vice versa? The fact that Androids have swipe keyboards available doesn't make your iPhone any worse at what it does.

I also think it may have mattered more early on. When iOS and the devices were still new, they were a huge gamble for Apple that required critical mass to be successful in terms of attracting app developers. That critical mass has been achieved and isn't going anywhere. Apple's products are now simultaneously truly mass market -- not niche goods -- but also have a stellar reputation for quality. Apple doesn't really to try to fend off its competitors via legal means when it's winning in the marketplace anyway, and clearing the issue out of top management's attention allows them to focus on further innovation rather than distracting legal battles (that aren't going amazingly well anyway).

And if Apple stops suing its competitors, they'll probably stop suing Apple in turn -- most of their lawsuits have been retaliatory -- which will permit Apple to gather up -- and improve upon -- some of the genuinely useful innovations that other companies developed first (e.g. actionable notifications, swipe keyboards, etc.).